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BS: The price of groceries!?
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Subject: BS: The price of groceries!? From: gnu Date: 05 Jul 11 - 02:11 PM Well, now I've seen it all. Balogna $3.29 a pound and cracked wheat bread to make a sandwich with it $3.19 a loaf and top sirloin steak $2.77 a pound. Salmon fillets, farmed 100 miles away from me at $14.58 a pound... ya gotta be shittin me! Boxes of cereal at... WTF? Is it because cruise missiles are US$600,000 each and Quackdaffy is eatin them at a pace? I can't imagine how young families are gonna be able to supply troops on the ground 8,000 miles away at these prices. And the bastards just put up the price of a 12 pack from $19.99 to $23.49... OVERNIGHT! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Ebbie Date: 05 Jul 11 - 02:31 PM I've been ranting about it for some time, gnu- and no one seems to listen. :) I've talked to grocery managers- and they seem bemused by it but have no answers. Our local downtown market - the next nearest is 7 miles away- pays no attention whatever to inflation - and thereby is forcing an inflationary spiral. If natioal inflation currently is at 5 or 6% (including food and fuel; .85% without), why do their items jump so drastically? Our bread has gone from $3.49 to $5.98, and most cereals are $5.69 for a box of 15 ounces. In the last 20 years fruit yoghurts have gone from $1.89 to $4.59, same brand, same size. I don't eat Jello (gelatin product) but a couple of years ago I started taking a bowl of it on our weekly music night for the host. He likes it for the strong fingernails it gives him on his autoharp. He is legally blind and as he says, it's not a good idea to turn him loose with boiling water. When I began taking him the Jello (Sorry, olddude!) the larger box was priced at $1.18. Then it jumped to $1.49, then to $1.69 and now it is $1.89! All in less than three years. They are paying absolutely no attention to inflation rates. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: mmm1a Date: 05 Jul 11 - 02:39 PM I am the co director of our food pantry andlast year we had about 94 families that came in all year long (they came in several times that year) . this year by June the total was up to 154 . So yes the economy sucks , Lots of people out there have a hard time making it. mmm1a |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: gnu Date: 05 Jul 11 - 02:57 PM Yes, Ebbie... and when the price of fuel falls, groceries still go up. Must be the missiles. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: jacqui.c Date: 05 Jul 11 - 03:07 PM Seems to be happening everywhere. Butter has gone up 50% in the past 2-3 years, salmon by close to 100% and we are in an area with three supermarkets within about a mile of us. Problem is, our income doesn't increase accordingly. Kendall queried the cost of living index, which both our pensions are based on, and was told that it didn't take into account food or gas prices! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: gnu Date: 05 Jul 11 - 03:36 PM jac... that is just WRONG! Ya gotta eat and ya gotta get eats. Time fer the lantern K? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: maeve Date: 05 Jul 11 - 04:06 PM That's crazy, Jacqui: "cost of living index, which both our pensions are based on, and was told that it didn't take into account food or gas prices!" How can the Cost Of Living NOT be based on those? Sheesh! In our case, I'd be grateful for a pension, a minimal income, a real refrigerator, good food... We're all living in interesting times. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: GUEST,999 Date: 05 Jul 11 - 04:41 PM As a kid, I used to haul my red wagon filled with people's groceries and make between a nickle and a quarter per trip. Good way to pick up a $1.50 on a Saturday. Jujubes at 4 for a penny, and pop at 10 cents. An average bag of groceries was about $3.00. Today, an average bag is about $25 dollars. And there ain't no kids hustling a buck. Times sure have changed. I expect that Ebbie's costs are much higher. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 05 Jul 11 - 04:41 PM Demand and the commodities market! The grocer can't do anything about it. All grain prices are up 30-50 percent in the last year or so. Wheat may ease a bit because Russia expects a good harvest, but the trend will continue upward. Salmon and all fish are up as a result of scarcity- over-fishing and possibly climate change. China, India, Brazil, etc. are all taking more food as they develop larger middle classes. The only answer is for people to stop or at least decrease breeding of new bodies to feed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Jack the Sailor Date: 05 Jul 11 - 04:53 PM A lot of prices have gone up for us. We are defraying that somewhat with our garden and our freezer, bulk shopping saves a bit. We make our own soymilk. Its funny. When we got married we could buy chicken breasts for $2.00 a pound, I saw them at Sam's Club Friday for 1.99 per pound, skinless and boneless. But species after species of fish is leaving our price range, Fresh or frozen Tuns, Cod, Salmon, Haddock, Talapia etc. There is always something to buy for $2-3 per pound, we look up the recipes on line and use more spices. But the staples haven't changed much, Bread, eggs, chicken, etc. Is it possible that US produced food is not rising at nearly the level of imports. That would be expected with the "quantitative easing" the Treasury Dept, is doing. Though it would tend to stimulate the economy by making more money available, it would also decrease the value of the dollar in comparison to other currencies and increase the price of fungible international commodities like energy and base metals. In the long run this would be good for the USA in that local suppliers become much more viable. It also is by far the most effective way to discourage waste and encourage conservation. But in the short run, higher food and energy prices are inevitable. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Jack the Sailor Date: 05 Jul 11 - 04:56 PM Ebbie may be in the same position as my Dad in Newfoundland. He and his friends supplement their diets with moose, fish and other game. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: artbrooks Date: 05 Jul 11 - 06:13 PM One major factor driving food price increases besides the ever-increasing cost of getting commodities from the producer to the consumer is the move toward ethanol in gasoline. As more corn (maize) and other grains are used to produce ethanol, less is available for direct consumption and food animal feed. Increased production is only possible through the use of less productive land - where it is necessary to use more fuel, fertilizer, etc., to produce a given amount. Simple supply and demand is pushing the prices up. In the US, the CPI-W, which determines cost of living increases in Social Security, veterans' benefits and Federal retirement includes the following: Food and beverages Housing Apparel Transportation (including the cost of gas) Medical care Recreation Education and communication Other goods and services The basic reason that there has been no increases in these benefits in the past two years is that there was a 5.8 % in 2009 (mostly driven by large increases in gas prices), and the statistical cost of living actually went down in the following two years (following - no surprise - the price of gas). We can expect between 1% and 2% next year, depending on (surprise!) changes in the price of gas. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: pdq Date: 05 Jul 11 - 06:34 PM The Great Corn Con The Senate's preposterous new ethanol bill. By Robert Bryce Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007, at 3:09 PM ET The ethanol madness continues! Last week, the Senate passed an energy bill mandating the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2022—a sevenfold increase over current levels. Senators congratulated themselves for their environmental foresight. The president, a biofuels advocate, has enthusiastically endorsed the ethanol surge. But it's almost certainly a fantasy, since no one in Washington seems to have thought for five minutes about where or how that much ethanol could be produced... full article |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: artbrooks Date: 05 Jul 11 - 06:48 PM 4 year old article. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: pdq Date: 05 Jul 11 - 08:06 PM Ethanol's Grocery Bill Two federal studies add up the corn fuel's exorbitant cost. The Obama Administration is pushing a big expansion in ethanol, including a mandate to increase the share of the corn-based fuel required in gasoline to 15% from 10%. Apparently no one in the Administration has read a pair of new studies, one from its own EPA, that expose ethanol as a bad deal for consumers with little environmental benefit. The biofuels industry already receives a 45 cent tax credit for every gallon of ethanol produced, or about $3 billion a year. Meanwhile, import tariffs of 54 cents a gallon and an ad valorem tariff of four to seven cents a gallon keep out sugar-based ethanol from Brazil and the Caribbean. The federal 10% blending requirement insures a market for ethanol whether consumers want it or not -- a market Congress has mandated will double to 20.5 billion gallons in 2015. The Congressional Budget Office reported last month that Americans pay another surcharge for ethanol in higher food prices. CBO estimates that from April 2007 to April 2008 "the increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices." Ethanol raises food prices because millions of acres of farmland and three billion bushels of corn were diverted to ethanol from food production. Americans spend about $1.1 trillion a year on food, so in 2007 the ethanol subsidy cost families between $5.5 billion and $8.8 billion in higher grocery bills. A second study -- by the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Transportation and Air Quality -- explains that the reduction in CO2 emissions from burning ethanol are minimal and maybe negative. Making ethanol requires new land from clearing forest and grasslands that would otherwise sequester carbon emissions. "As with petroleum based fuels," the report concludes: "GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions are associated with the conversion and combustion of bio-fuels and every year they are produced GHG emissions could be released through time if new acres are needed to produce corn or other crops for biofuels." The EPA study also explores a series of alternative scenarios over 30 to 100 years. In some cases ethanol leads to a net reduction in carbon relative to using gasoline. But many other long-term scenarios observe a net increase in CO2 relative to burning fossil fuels. Ethanol produced in a "basic natural gas fired dry mill" will over a 30-year horizon produce "a 5% increase in GHG emissions compared to petroleum gasoline." When ethanol is produced with coal burning mills, the process "significantly worsens the lifecycle GHG impact of ethanol" creating 34% more greenhouse gases than gasoline does over 30 years. Both CBO and EPA find that in theory cellulosic ethanol -- from wood chips, grasses and biowaste -- would reduce carbon emissions. However, as CBO emphasizes, "current technologies for producing cellulosic ethanol are not commercially viable." The ethanol lobby is attempting a giant bait-and-switch: Keep claiming that cellulosic ethanol is just around the corner, even as it knows the only current technology to meet federal mandates is corn ethanol (or sugar, if it didn't face an import tariff). As public policy, ethanol is like the joke about the baseball prospect who is a poor hitter but a bad fielder. It doesn't reduce CO2 but it does cost more. Imagine how many subsidies the Beltway would throw at ethanol if the fuel actually had any benefits. Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: artbrooks Date: 05 Jul 11 - 08:27 PM Better - only 2 years old. It should be noted that the Dems are pushing the elimination of the biofuels tax credit but the Reps are resisting...seems that counts as a "tax increase". |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Rumncoke Date: 05 Jul 11 - 08:41 PM Still cheap when compared to prices here in Britain. Fuel and protein has always seemed really cheap in the US - I have read quite a few indignant messages over the years complaining of the cost of things here, it can bequite a shock for visitors who don't research costs before hand, or who assume that a litre is about the same as a gallon. Surloin steak 2.77 dollars a pound - oh wow you lucky people. Anne Croucher. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: maeve Date: 05 Jul 11 - 08:49 PM I note that the sirloin was in belle Canada, not the US. Here in Maine, I feel fortunate to have peanut butter, pasta, beans, and our bantams' eggs most weeks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Jack the Sailor Date: 05 Jul 11 - 08:52 PM Surloin steak 2.77 dollars a pound 699 on sale here in Wilmington, nc Do you mean Sir Loin, the loser at the race track? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Janie Date: 05 Jul 11 - 09:02 PM Earlier weather events, along with flooding in the Mississippi basin has devastated corn crops. Cost of corn has sky rocketed, which drives up many more food prices. For example, ever notice how many products contain corn syrup? Guess what is happening to the cost of livestock feed? Beef, dairy, pork, chicken - Allen Family Foods, a major chicken producer (brand name Seaford Chicken), filed for bankruptcy in June, mostly because of the price of corn. Think about what fuel prices add to the production and distribution of food. One good thing, I suppose - for years I bought exclusively organic food - anything I didn't raise myself. As times got tougher I could no longer afford to do so. Now, locally grown organic produce, fruits and meat are not that much more expensive than what is available, inorganic and shipped from California, Florida or South America, in my local grocery store. With the price gap narrowed so much, I am back to shopping my local co-op and farmer's market more frequently. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: pdq Date: 05 Jul 11 - 09:03 PM Where I live, hamburger with "84% fat-free" marked on the package is $3.59 USD. Boneless chicken breasts are the same price but are of dubious origin and have no taste at all. Good steak (other than pot roast and chuck) starts at about $7.00 per pound and goes over $10.00 (not sure, I just don't even look) for filet mignon and other choice cuts. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: pdq Date: 05 Jul 11 - 09:17 PM The Midwest already has endless miles of cropland and precious few acres of native vegetation, the home of native wildlife. The Congrssional demand for an enormous increase in corn-based ethanol for fues has given us a new word... Corn Sprawl |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: GUEST,mg Date: 05 Jul 11 - 10:05 PM Bad news for people who buy but good news for people who have something to sell, and we should all have something to sell if we can...plant nut trees, berry bushes, obvious vegetables and fruits..dwarf trees can be harvested very quickly. In Washington we spray and cut down what is said to be one of the healthiest fruits..blackberries..they grow like crazy and cost like $3.00 for a little basket in the supermarket and you can get them for free and get more and sell them for $2.00 a basket. They should be culling deer and domesticated geese and give them to needy people. There should be community small dairies in places like Detroit with lots of green space..eggs, milk, meat. I live in a place that I swear could support hundreds of goats and cows and you don't see them...something is wrong from stem to stern..food production needs to be way less centralized and more home grown. One thing really really needed is mobile butchers who will butcher at least smaller animals like goats, chickens, geese and give you wrapped meat...talk to your extension people. There are poor people, there are underfed people, there are abandoned farms, there is green space in many cities and no one can connect the dots..maybe except me. mg |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Rumncoke Date: 06 Jul 11 - 06:02 AM I was listening to the radio in the car (BBC Radio 4)to a farmer who raises cattle and black faced on marginal land up in scotland. The beasts are smaller than the supermarket destined grain fed beef and lamb, but the cattle provide both milk and meat and the quality of the meat, milk, cream is superior to the average (both in taste and actual food content) and is taken by some food processors in preference to that from larger types. The animals graze and grow on the uplands and eat a wide variety of plants. The sheep are 'hefted' on the land, that is they roam free in an area the flock has as its terretory, moving about as they need to find foods in different seasons. The requirement for grain is reduced - the beef cattle are moved to lowland pasture and fed a suplement of grain to increase their bulk before slaughter. The presenter was given a bowl of cream from the dairy herd, and it was almost funny to hear her enthusing over it as she ate it with some strawberries. Apparently it was almost solid after being cooled in the fridge, despite being 'just' simple cream off the milk, untreated. It is very true that one man's wasteland is another man's living. I remember reading of a 'helpful' neighbour spraying a large area of weedy ground beside a neighbour's house because he thought it would help them turn it into a lawn. He suceeded in killing their pets, and almost killing the family - they were just sitting down to eat the poisoned greenstuff when the neighbour went over to receive their thanks for his work. Anne Croucher Dorset, England |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: GUEST,mg Date: 06 Jul 11 - 12:52 PM Read up on Kerry cows...evolved to eat rough vegetation, climb hills etc. Great butter and cream. Good at delivering calves. Great for some marginal situations. However..very hard to get female calves. Can get male calves and breed with another somewhat similar type of cow and so they are half Kerry..not sure how the genetics plays out. In a few generations you could get about 93% Kerry but would only get what was passed on via male side, which would of course include female stuff as well...perhaps DNA testing would separate offspring into higher Kerry content from male maternal DNA. mg |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: gnu Date: 06 Jul 11 - 01:46 PM Interesting about the ethanol. Veeeerrryyy interesting. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Donuel Date: 06 Jul 11 - 08:58 PM the 16 dollar bag of groceries npr |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Ebbie Date: 06 Jul 11 - 10:47 PM "Where I live, hamburger with "84% fat-free" marked on the package is $3.59 USD" pdq Where in the US do you live, pdq? Even in Juneau, Alaska where everything imported from elsewhere, we don't have a price like that. If you mean $3.89 pound, that is. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: GUEST Date: 07 Jul 11 - 04:31 AM The poster, of course, is gargoyle.... The ECONIMIST publishes the "Big Mac Index."
It uses the McDonald's food to help the layperson understand exchange- rate-theory. I realize it will not help the naterring-naybobs-of-negativism that generally dwell "below the line," but here is one example - How long does the average wage earner need to work - to purchase a "Big Mac" sandwhich in their own country?
Tokyo, Japan - 10 minutes Los Angeles, United States - 11 minutes Toronto, Ontario, Canada - 14 minutes Dublin, Ireland - 15 minutesv Budapest, Hungary - 59 minutes Cairo, Egypt - 82 minutes Mexico City, Mexico - 129 minutes
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Jack the Sailor Date: 07 Jul 11 - 01:25 PM The "Big Mac Index" would be more useful to the discussion if a Big Mac was groceries. How many minutes of work is a bean burrito in all those places. I'll bet the Mexicans fare better in that comparison. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: gnu Date: 12 Jul 11 - 04:04 PM Welllll today, I faired well... frozen Atlantic Salmon gutted, head on $2 a pound (it barely fit in the fridge freezer), cross rib beef steak $2 a pound, stuffed frozen Butterball turkey $1.39 a pound, and Washington sweet cherries $3 a pound. I didn't get the centre cut pork loin chops at $2 a pound as they were cut an inch thick... but they looked nice. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 12 Jul 11 - 04:54 PM Guest mg, I have seen a breed of small Irish cows called Dexters at teh Royal Norfolk Show (UK) They are similar to the Kerry breed, but not nearly so rare. They can subsist on rough grazing, are tough and hardy and very handy to manage. I think they're smaller than the Kerry. I have heard them called 'Kerry Dexters' but don't know if this is correct. They're usually black. (They certainly aren't rare.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Jack the Sailor Date: 12 Jul 11 - 05:10 PM Gnu, You fared well!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 12 Jul 11 - 06:18 PM gnu, II can't believe salmon at 2$ per. I think you really got artificially colored pink gefilte fish at that price. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Leadfingers Date: 12 Jul 11 - 07:07 PM My gas (For Central Heating and cooking) is going up by more than FOUR times the Inflation rate - A large Wholemeal loaf in Sainsbury's WAS £1 till early this year , now its £1.45 . |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 12 Jul 11 - 08:04 PM We have a choice on shellfish and shrimp in Canada. Asian frozen shrimp are cheap and often offered at 2 packs for the price of one. There have been warnings about contamination, pesticides and preservatives. In a separate freezer are North American shrimp, at 3 or more times the price. Salmon is also priced according as to whether it is Alaskan, B. C. or from marine (Asian processed) sources. We eat B. C. or Atlantic fresh and Alaskan tinned, but sometimes we can't resist the low cost import, usually in the form of 3 pound or so filleted sides. This week, Atlantic filets are on special at $2.89 per 100 grams (about $12/lb.) at Safeway (called 'extreme value'). At Co-op, sockeye wild is $2.49 per 100 grams. Rib grilling steak is $5.99 per pound). |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: gnu Date: 12 Jul 11 - 08:19 PM JotSC... no buddy... these are farmed Brilliant Salmon.. not that Left Coast stuff... REAL salmon... the tastey stuff. Q... rib is on sale here for about that same price, $5.99 or less, even tho it comes from just down the road from you, but it's hard to get a nice cut... a lot of fat in most. Fortunately, I can pick and choose for the freezer. I buy them for Mum. Me, I stick to the cheaper and LEANER cuts as I mentioned above. I have cut my meat intake drastically and feel much healthier (and less hungry) by doing so. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 12 Jul 11 - 09:18 PM Farmed salmon? Cheap, but full of medicinal treatments. Wouldn't touch it. Fresh caught Atlantic salmon is excellent, but I haven't seen any since my last trip to the Maritimes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The price of groceries!? From: gnu Date: 12 Jul 11 - 09:50 PM I LIVE in the maritimes and fresh caught WILD Atlantic Salmon is rare... ya gotta be a rich to get that stuff. It IS caught and sold... mostly caught in Labrador and sold in Europe. Me, I buy the farmed Brilliants... better than the stuff from the Left Coast no matter what they are fed. |
